A reloading press for reloading spent rifle and pistol cartridges commonly includes tools for performing all or most of the individual steps of depriming, resizing, repriming, flaring the mouth of the cartridge, recharging the cartridge with powder, seating a new bullet in the cartridge and crimping the mouth of the cartridge about the bullet.
Reloading presses use a variety of tools for performing the reloading operations, and a variety of mechanisms for supplying new primers and powder to the cartridges. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,031,804 issued to Boschi which discloses an indexing mechanism for automatically rotating a shell support to reposition shot shells in subsequent operating stations after the completion of each reloading step, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,973,465 issued to Bachhuber et al which discloses an automatic primer feed mechanism. U.S. Pat. No. 3,336,829 issued to Lee, U.S. Pat. No. 3,242,790 issued to Bachhuber, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,127 issued to Deitemeyer also show various tools and mechanisms for performing the desired reloading operations.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,020,737 issued to Ranson for a "Cartridge Loading Machine" relates to a reloading press having a safety latch which prevents the actuation of a head carrying the tools for performing the reloading operations unless a shift plate has been manually actuated to advance the cartridges to the next reloading station. The safety latch is designed to protect a reprimed shell from being accidentally subjected to a second repriming operation which could detonate the primer.